


Morning Rain

by Shachaai



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-10 23:13:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3306896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shachaai/pseuds/Shachaai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's cold and it's raining and Francis doesn't want to even be out of <i>bed</i>, never mind leave his home to fetch breakfast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Morning Rain

**Author's Note:**

> Repost of old fic from my tumblr.

It is a terribly tragic fact for Francis that, on the one day when the weather is cold and dreary and _perfect_ for curling up underneath the bedcovers with an agreeable lover and doing absolutely _nothing_ but trade soft touches and dream, on the one day he has the weather (heavy rain) as an excuse, the agreeable lover (Arthur) snuggled beneath the duvet on ‘his’ side of the bed, still half-asleep and nudging himself pleasantly into the dip in the mattress beside Francis’ body –

On that _one_ day, Francis gets a phone-call from his boss, bringing forward a meeting scheduled three days hence to tomorrow, dragging the need to get all said meeting’s paperwork done forward with it at an alarming rate.

Arthur complains about the phone-call disturbing his slumber, and rolls into Francis’ space in the sheets with a sleepy, sulky grumble when Francis slides out of the bed, taking all his warmth with him. Arthur’s sound asleep again barely five minutes later of course, buried up to mid-nose in a dense swath of fabric, one arm tucked under the pillow under his head and the other firmly cuddling around another pillow he’d stolen from Francis. Autumn is fading fast with the first frost-crackles of oncoming winter – and Arthur, quite definitely in the mornings, _loathes_ the cold.

He’s not alone in that. Francis changes quickly – a thick jumper, old comfortable jeans, hair brushed to glossiness but left to hang loose and keep his neck warm – and drinks hot coffee to the sound of the rain on his apartment’s windows, papers spread out before him on his kitchen table. By the time he thinks about breakfast his long fingers are already ink-stained, mind turning towards hopelessness in the face of the inclemency outside. He has _no_ desire to leave his seat, brave the pervading wet and fetch fresh pastries from the _pâtisserie_ he frequents two streets over near the park, and cooking, for once, seems like such an _effort_ when his mind is still so full of numbers, names and facts and things he still needs to read. And yet…it is too _cold_ for a cold breakfast in his belly, and he has far too much work to do to eat no food at all.

As his loudly growling stomach so abruptly and _pointedly_ chooses to remind him.

“You could wake the _dead_ with that racket.”

Arthur announces his presence with a heavy _drape_ on Francis’ shoulders, arms folded around Francis’ neck and one of Francis’ jumpers folded and flopping over his hands. He’s warm, bed-warm, and Francis leans back into the strong shoulder now conveniently behind his head, feeling Arthur’s nose dig into his jaw.

“Alors, bienvenue à la terre de ceux qui sont en vie -”

Teeth scratch the lower edge of Francis’ stubble line in warning, catch softer skin where jaw gives way to vulnerable throat. Francis’ pulse jumps invitingly – but Arthur’s hands spread themselves flat on his chest reprovingly, his mouth leaving more of a nip to the skin beneath it than a _good morning_ kiss.

“No ribbeting before food,” Arthur says firmly. Pauses, and then stands up straight. “And tea. Most importantly tea. Where the hell do you keep it in this blasted kitchen again, anyway?”

Arthur grouches his way through the morning ritual. He shuffles his bedsocks around the room at Francis’ (English) direction to claim teabags for his own, clicking on the electric kettle and then carrying forth his prize when the water’s boiling hot – a battered mug of tea, strong and milky and bittersweet, cradled like a prayer between his hands until the heat of it has subsided enough not to burn his lips. The smell of it curls lazily around the kitchen, a counterpoint to Arthur’s angles as he deposits himself in a chair at Francis’ side, soft baggy clothes failing to smooth the sharpness of his bones.

Arthur is a man that looks like a jigsaw done in the dark, an image of an English Boxing Day Hunt broken up and reassembled. There’s something of a bird there, and the auburn slyness of a fox, the dignified wildness of the forest beside the feral nobility he strives to attain. Long mornings make Francis fanciful but there is no doubt that bedding Arthur is a _complication –_ but a very engaging complication, all the same. He toes Arthur’s ankle under the table and – _ah,_ there is the wary green gaze at last, the last of sleep falling away from the edges of Arthur’s jade(d) eyes.

“What?” asks Arthur, and Francis’ stomach growls again. Arthur frowns. “ _Eat_ something, idiot. It’s too late in the day for the dawn chorus to start up again.”

Francis frowns right back at him, and taps his pen on the paper-covered tabletop for good measure. “Mais je suis _occu-”_

_“English._ ”

_“Busy,_ ” Francis sighs, and amends his speech. “I am _busy,_ rosbif. Not all of us can afford to simply sleep the day away -”

“This from the one who sleeps in until _two_ every weekend if he’s not forcibly kicked out of bed?” Arthur scoffs. “You’re in your own kitchen; you can spare _five minutes_ to grab some toast -”

_“Toast?”_ Francis says, using the tone of voice that would usually be reserved for one who has just been confronted with the fortnight-old rotting carcass of a sewer rat.

“ _Toast,_ ” Arthur says firmly. “I don’t _care_ how much it wounds your oh-so- _glorious_ culinary sensibilities; it’s a simple, practical snack-meal -”

“It goes _soggy._ ” Francis fails to hide his disgust. “It goes soggy and it sticks to the top of your mouth and cools down _far_ too quickly for it to taste like anything other than cold fatty cardboard -”

“You could put some jam on it.”

_“_ Cold, _sweetened_ fatty cardboard, _and,_ ” Francis says dramatically, pauses to take a breath and ignore the unimpressed _look_ that’s being levelled at him, “because _you_ are within a mile radius of it, it will undoubtedly come out _burnt._ ”

Arthur drinks some more of his tea, and lets the silence _stretch_ in the kitchen between them. Francis would use the pause to do more of his paperwork, but, when he looks down at it, the words and facts before him are suddenly just meaningless strings of letters and numbers, absolute nonsense that refuses to sink with any sort of comprehensibility into his head, drowned out by quiet and the drip-drip-dripping of the endless rain outside. His stomach grumbling _again._

Arthur sighs at him. “Frog, whilst I’m flattered you think I’m talented enough that my mere _presence_ in your country opens up a portal to the fiery pits of hell within all your kitchen appliances, I _am_ actually capable of both producing – and standing by and watching someone else produce – a cooked breakfast that isn’t blackened in any way, shape or form. Since you’re not so keen on a lot of meat first thing -”

Francis shudders, his stomach chiming in – so Arthur gives up, setting down his half-full mug and standing up. “We’re having scrambled eggs. And toast.”

Francis protests. “We are _n-”_ Arthur _glares_ at him. “…If you cook them in the microwave, rosbif, I’m putting you out in the rain.”

Arthur scowls but doesn’t say anything as he goes to the fridge to fetch butter, eggs and milk.

Francis watches him carefully (Arthur is a creature to be feared when placed near an open flame with any sort of potentially edible item), trying to look as though he _isn’t_ watching his lover like a hawk when Arthur turns around to grab his mug of tea to drink whilst he’s carefully scrambling the eggs. The beautifully _unburnt_ scrambled eggs, Arthur is quick to point out as he slides them onto a plate – although the bread in the toaster, both of them tactfully do not mention, _does_ require an intervention when it starts smoking mid-way through Arthur’s gloating about the eggs.

They eat the eggs and toast together at the tabletop, the eggs a little salted, and the toast with butter and strawberry jam. They leave crumbs on the paperwork and rings of coffee/tea-stains on the table’s wood – and a pleasant fullness in Francis’ belly, warming him inside-out even against the damningly _smug_ look Arthur keeps sending him as the rosbif sips his own tea.

His hunger finally satiated, Francis goes back to work – and it’s still raining outside; it’s still dreary, and he _still_ isn’t curled up in bed, but he has food and he has Arthur sitting contently beside him, ankle hooked comfortably around his leg. So while everything is not according to Francis’ wonderful _plan…_ everything is alright, everything will do, even if his nose is horribly cold and there’s a thin layer of smoke resolutely clinging to the ceiling from the toaster’s earlier complaint. Everything will do quite nicely, for a change, and, next time he sees him, Francis will nicely strangle his boss.


End file.
